Ukrainian Mikhail Kolotursky is really tired of being dead.
But what clearly bothered the throngs of bureaucrats involved in his case was that the man had the gall, for 18 months without pause, to insist he really is alive.
Kolotursky's story is an epic one, even by Ukrainian standards, of how far officialdom in the former Soviet republic has yet to travel before its local governments achieve the competence of other European states. And the odyssey is not yet complete.
An industrial laborer from the town of Krasny Luch in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, Kolotursky is an unlikely hero. A thin man, slightly balding and aged 48, he is not adverse to a sip or two of vodka.
"All I want is to be alive legally," Kolotursky told a reporter for the major daily newspaper Fakty. "But after you die, it turns out, that's not so easy to do."
The tale began with a Kolotursky family spat in late 2001. Words were exchanged, one thing led to another, and Liudmila ordered her husband out of her sight. Mikhail gathered a few possessions and slammed the door.
When her mate failed to turn up after 10 days Mrs Kolotursky remained calm for, as she later related to TV reporters, her Mikhail had during their 12 years of marriage more than once walked out of the house. He always came back eventually, sometimes weeks later, albeit none the worse for wear.
Ukraine is a poor country with some 25,000 men serving its police force, one of Europe's largest. In provincial towns like Krasny Luch, missing persons searches generally produce results.
Two weeks into Mikhail's absence, Liudmila received a call from the regional coroner: the body of a man, possibly her husband's, needed identifying.
The smell in the morgue (power was out, and so the air conditioners weren't functioning) was overwhelming and Liudmila became ill, but one of the dozen corpses on display resembled Mikhail.
It seemed to match: ears, hair, physique; and the cause of death -- hyperthermia -- made sense with 20 degrees of frost outside, and Mikhail having been lightly dressed when he stormed out of the house.
Unemployed herself, Mrs Kolotursky took out a loan to pay for the funeral. The Krasy Luch town registration office properly noted Mikhail's untimely end, and in due course posted Mrs Kolotursky an official certificate attesting to her husband's death.
"You're alive ... but we just had your funeral yesterday," Liudmila declared when Mikhail finally showed up. She then fainted, but Mikhail revived her with a glass of water, he recalled.
The Kolotovskys settled their personal differences as a result of the incident, and according to both have lived in peace and harmony ever since Mikhail returned from the erstwhile dead.
The difficult part has been the paperwork.
The Krasny Luch birth and death registration office refused to take Mikhail's death certificate back, claiming only the regional court could annul such a document.
The court clerk however wouldn't accept Mr Kolotursky's application for a hearing, as only persons with proof of identity can appear in a court.
And so it went. Some officials accused Liudmila of wittingly forgetting her husband's appearance. Others refused outright to speak with Mikhail, on the grounds that Ukrainian government employees are not obliged to listen to complaints from dead citizens.
Kolotursky toured a significant portion of the Luhansk regional bureaucracy in search of support.
True, the police gave him a note certifying him alive; but in most cases Mikhail would spend a day or two waiting outside an office only to learn, sometimes in writing, they couldn't help him, as he didn't exist.
The Ukrainian legal system did of course offer its traditional solution to difficult cases -- while Mikhail was waiting for an audience with a Luhansk appellate judge -- and a "friend of the court" approached him offering to bring him back to legal life in exchange for a US$100 bribe.
"We live on about US$15 a month," Mikhail said. "Where am I going to get money like that?"
Eighteen months of documented death later, Mikhail now has a promise from the Ministry of Internal Affairs they will issue him a passport by August, but as yet no identification papers have arrived.
The Kolotursky family is still paying for Mikhail's funeral.
The unknown body is still in the Kolotursky family grave and -- since there is no money to replace them -- the etchings in the man's headstone will, for the foreseeable future, read "Mikhail Kolotursky 1954-2001."
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